22 Comments
I wrote "the hot car is cheaper than the cold car". I thought, ok, surrealism, why not. Tea never crossed my mind.
Haha, that is one possible translation, since 차 (車) can be short for 자동차, but a Korean speaker would interpret it here as 'tea' (茶) given the 'hot/cold' adjectives.
I wrote, "the hot tea is cheaper than the cold tea," shouldn't that be accepted?
I absolutely agree it should, yes. Since Korean does not have any articles (definite or indefinite), then any article can be implied in the English translation.
The course is still new so these types of alternate translations have not all been added in yet, I believe. It's important to report them, especially for a language like Korean where sentences can be translated in many different ways.
It should not be wrong, as 차 is often used for a serving of tea. I would report it next time.
There can be and often is a 더, but like many things in Korean, if clearly understood through context, it can be dropped. If you are not attaching the particle ~보다 to a compared thing, you typically need 더; with ~보다, the 더 is optional.
Let me give you another homonyms 1. 눈 eye vs. 눈 snow 2. 배 abdomen vs. 배 pear vs. 배 ship or boat 3. 밤 night vs. 밤 chestnut And so on. . .there are many homonyms in Korean! They can be differentiated by the context or a prolonged sound
The use of the word cheap as a translation of 싸 요 connotes lower quality. A lower price would mean less expensive. I don't buy cheap--low quality--things, but look for acceptable quality at a price I can afford to pay. Prices of the same product can vary and the less expensive price for the identical item doesn't reduce its quality. The bottom line is that cheap things are usually seen in a negative way.
Not when you're talking about monetary cost, like this sentence is. "Cheap" only has that negative connotation in a metaphorical context (i.e. a cheap-looking salesman), or maybe if you're in a higher tax bracket than most folks.
How do you differentiate between the words salty and cheap ? Isn' t it both 싸요 ??
Is it unreasonable to say "hot tea is cheaper than iced tea?" I understand that "차가운" means cold, but I feel like saying "iced" makes more sense.
In my experience living in Korea, "iced tea" was always referred to using the loanword 아이스티, because it's sort of an imported Western thing, and I only saw it sold in coffee shops. 차가운 차 is simply tea that's served cold.
Even in the United States "Iced Tea" a cold and very sweet tea based drink, while cold tea, cool tea, tea with ice, et cetra all mean tea that is not hot.
And in the South of the US, "tea" means cold, "sweet tea" means cold tea with a bunch of sugar, and "hot tea" means what everyone else calls "tea"… Dialects are fun.
I wrote, Hot tea is cheaper than a cold car. .....Should have known not to write something that made sense.
